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Meet the Intern: Lene Engelst

The Recreational Fear Lab is delighted to host a research intern in the spring of 2022. In this post, lab intern Lene Engelst tells us about herself and her interest in the lab.

Hi! My name is Lene, and I graduated from Aarhus University with a Master of Arts in 2021. I wrote my bachelor thesis about a true-crime podcast focusing on morbid curiosity and using horror fiction and homicide fiction as a kind of survival strategy.

 

When I was a student at Aarhus University, I was a research assistant with the Recreational Fear Lab. We collected data at Dystopia Entertainment in Vejle. From this experience, I got into contact with the people from Dystopia Entertainment, where I had my internship in the 9th semester. I earned valuable work experience from this internship and loved creating immersive horror experiences.

 

I wanted to be an intern at Recreational Fear Lab now because of my interest in morbid curiosity and the evolutionary psychology behind the fascination and popularity of true crime and homicide fiction in the entertainment industry. I also wanted to work with horror from a more scientific perspective, which this internship offered, and I’m really excited to get to work on the new research projects at Recreational Fear Lab.

 

Personally, I'm very interested in morbid curiosity, and I watch and listen to a lot of true crime. However, I’m a big scaredy-cat and get nightmares from horror movies – but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching them – though I watch most of it with my hands in front of my eyes. I love watching them with my friends, and we all get a kick out of jump scares and who is the most frightened – which is usually me.